Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)
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1183. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade the number of Irish citizens that are registered in the citizens' registration system; the number in each country; and, if possible, to distinguish between those identified as being resident abroad and those on short-term trips. [33382/14]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The Citizen’s Registration service is a voluntary service which encourages Irish citizens travelling or living overseas to register their contact details with the Department of Foreign and Trade. This means that in the event of an unforeseen crisis such as a natural disaster or civil unrest, the Department can proactively contact the citizen, ensure they are safe, keep them informed of any evacuation plans and provide assistance where necessary. Due to Data Protection obligations, registrations received under the Citizens’ Registration facility are only valid for the duration of an individual’s visit to a country and are not kept for longer than is necessary for the purpose for which it has been given. As such, registrations where the citizens’ date of departure from a country has passed are deleted. Furthermore, the Citizens’ registration system was designed primarily for use in a crisis situation in a specific country or region. Accordingly, an overall total figure for all countries is not readily available to extract from the database.As records are not retained for longer than is necessary, it is only possible to give a snapshot of the number of citizens registered on a given day. Also, as citizens can register in advance of their actual travel abroad, the numbers registered for each country may not give an accurate reflection of the number of Irish citizens currently in that country. Furthermore, each citizen can also register up to ten additional adults and ten additional minors who may be travelling with them, the detail of which cannot be readily extracted for these statistical purposes.

As registration is voluntary, the figures provided below relate only to those people who have chosen to register and there may well be people either visiting or resident in any of these countries, who have chosen not to register. On 09 September 2014, the following are the number of individual registrations of Irish citizens who are currently in, or travelling at a specified date in the future, to: